The exec that survived two humiliating demotions under Steve Ballmer has triumphed again: His startup is now worth $3.5 billion (MSFT)

Computer storage startup Snowflake Computing has raised a $450 million round of investment that values the company at $3.5 billion.

That’s more than double the valuation it held nine months ago, when it last raised funding.

It is a sweet moment of triumph for its CEO Bob Muglia, who rose to fame as a top Microsoft exec before suffering a humiliating dismissal by Steve Ballmer when the two disagreed about cloud strategy.

A hot computer storage startup called Snowflake Computing has raised a monster new round of venture investment: $450 million. This round has given the company a pre-money valuation of $3.5 billion, the company said.

This investment comes just nine months after the company’s last round of $264 million, which valued it a $1.5 billion pre-money, meaning it more than doubled its valuation just this year.

One reason: Snowflake is run by well-known former Microsoft exec Bob Muglia, who was hired by Bill Gates, helped build the company’s first database product — still a huge business for Microsoft today — worked on Office, MSN, and Windows, and then ran Servers and Tools,